Today's bit player guest-starred on a 1968 episode of Julia, as the host of a dating game TV show. Here he is about to present four potential dates to Ron Rich's character. Who is he?
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Hint: Anthony Perkins once played him in a movie.
It's Jim Piersall! Piersall had just wrapped up a 17-year baseball career, the last five seasons of which came with the LA Angels. Also a Red Sox, Indian, Senator and Met, Piersall hit .272 with 104 HR and 591 RBI. His best season was 1956, when he hit .293 with 14 HR and 87 RBI for the Red Sox, leading the AL with 40 doubles. Piersall, whose battle with bipolar disorder was chronicled in the book and movie Fear Strikes Out, was later an announcer and a coach. He died in 2017.
I have five cards from his playing days:
And much like Julia in 1971, I'll be cancelling this series, as I've run out of vintage players that played other characters in film or TV, that I am aware of. I don't have interested in doing modern players. I might revisit this once in a while if I find out about another player or get a card of someone like Chuck Connors.
I'm also stopping Art on the Back for similar reasons (don't feel like doing newer cards) and I've run out of dated matchbooks, so I've stopped those posts for now and may or may not go back to them. I will start a new series soon, for the 1976 SSPC set.
I read "Fear Strikes Out" way back in high school. This was a fun and informative series, thanks for doing it!
ReplyDeleteI'm not glad that you're stopping the series', but I am glad that you won't be continuing them with more modern items, because those wouldn't be of much interest to me either.
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